Autocorrelation

Week 4

Evie Zhang

Old Dominion University

Topics

  • Stationarity
  • Autocorrelation
  • Moving Averages
  • Exam Review

Stationarity

Mean Stationarity

\[E[y_t] = \mu \ \forall \ t \in \{0, ..., T+h\}\]

An example of a mean stationary process is white noise: independent and identically distributed process with mean \(\mu\) (usually 0) and variance \(\sigma^2\).

Mean Stationarity

When modeling, OLS assumes a mean stationary process.

Example: suppose we want to look at the impact of a policy on an outcome.

Mean Stationarity

Code 
df <- data.frame(t = 1:100, y = NA)
df$y <- 0 + .2*df$t + rnorm(100)

plot(df$t, df$y, xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome (Units)", type = "l")
abline(v = 70, lty = 2)
text("Pre", x = 65, y = 3)
text("Post", x = 76, y = 3)

Mean Stationarity

Code 
reg <- lm(y ~ I(t>=70), data = df)
summary(reg)

Call:
lm(formula = y ~ I(t >= 70), data = df)

Residuals:
    Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
-7.4057 -2.9028  0.3151  2.8224  7.6771 

Coefficients:
               Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)      7.0452     0.4380   16.08   <2e-16 ***
I(t >= 70)TRUE  10.1459     0.7867   12.90   <2e-16 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 3.638 on 98 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared:  0.6292,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.6255 
F-statistic: 166.3 on 1 and 98 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

Mean Stationarity

Code 
plot(df$t, df$y, xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome (Units)", type = "l")
abline(v = 70, lty = 2)

lines(df$t, predict(reg, df))

Variance Stationarity

\[\text{var}(y_t) = \sigma^2 \ \forall \ t \in \{0, ..., T+h\}\]

White Noise is also an example of a variance stationary process. In fact, so is the previous time series.

Note that mean stationarity \(\neq\) variance stationarity.

Variance Stationarity

Code 
y2 <- 0 + rnorm(100, 0, 1:100 / 20)
plot(df$t, y2, type = "l",
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome (Units)")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Variance Stationarity

This is an issue when calculating standard errors, which uses the variance of the error term.

OLS assumes the variance of the error is constant and does not vary in any dimension.

Autocorrelation

Variance

\[var(x) = \frac{1}{n}\sum(x-E[x])^2\]

\[var(x) = \frac{1}{n}\sum(x-E[x])(x-E[x])\]

Covariance

\[cov(x, y) = \frac{1}{n}\sum(x-E[x])(y-E[y])\]

Correlation

\[cor(x, y) = \frac{cov(x,y)}{\sqrt{var(x)var(y)}}\]

Autocorrelation

\[\rho(1) = \frac{cov(y_t,y_{t-1})}{var(y)}\]

\[\rho(k) = \frac{cov(y_t,y_{t-k})}{var(y)} = \frac{\gamma(k)}{\gamma(0)}\]

Autocorrelation Function

\[Y_t = 2 + .5Y_{t-1} + \epsilon_t\]

Code 
auto_cor <- function(vector, lags = 1){
  
  t <- (lags+1):length(vector)
  cor(vector[t-lags], vector[t], use="complete.obs")
}

df$y2 <- 0
for(i in 2:100) df$y2[df$t == i] <- 2 + (.5*df$y2[df$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

print(paste0("Lag ", c(1, 2, 10), ": ", round(c(Lag1 = auto_cor(df$y2, 1), Lag2 = auto_cor(df$y2, 2), Lag10 = auto_cor(df$y2, 10)), 4), "\n"))

[1] “Lag 1: 0.4447” “Lag 2: 0.0864” “Lag 10: -0.0315”

Autocorrelation Function

Code 
vec <- 1
for(i in 1:20){
  
  vec <- c(vec, auto_cor(df$y2, i))
}
ci <- c(1.96/sqrt(length(df$y2)), -1.96/sqrt(length(df$y2)))
plot(0:20, vec, type = "h",
     xlab = "Lag", ylab = "ACF",
     ylim = c(min(ci, vec), max(ci, vec)))
abline(h = 0)
abline(h = ci,
       col = "dodgerblue", lty = 2)

Autocorrelation Function

Code 
acf(df$y2, lag.max = 20, ci.type = "white")

Autocorrelation Function

\[Y_t = \beta Y_{t-1} + e_{t}\]

\[Y_t = \beta (\beta Y_{t-2} + e_{t-1}) + e_{t} = \beta^2Y_{t-2} + \beta e_{t-1} + e_t\]

\[\begin{aligned} Y_t &= \beta (\beta (\beta Y_{t-3} + e_{t-2}) + e_{t-1}) + e_{t} \\ &= \beta^3Y_{t-3} + \beta^2e_{t-2} + \beta e_{t-1} + e_{t} \end{aligned} \]

\[Y_t = \sum_{i = 0}^{\infty} \beta^i e_{t-i}\]

What do we think about \(\beta\)?

Autocorrelation Function

If \(|\beta| < 1\), then eventually shocks in the past disappear, and we can calculate this sum.

\[E[Y_t] = E[\sum^\infty_{i = 0} \beta^ie_{t-i}] = 0\] \[\text{var}(Y_t) = \text{var}(\sum^\infty_{i = 0} \beta^ie_{t-i}) = \ ... \ = \frac{\sigma^2}{1 - \beta^2}\]

Partial Autocorrelation

We can also talk about partial autocorrelations.

  • This is the correlation of lag \(k\) after partialing out the correlations of lags \(1\) through \(k-1\).

Partial Autocorrelation

Code 
pacf(df$y2)

Random Walk

What if \(|\beta| = 1\)? This is called a Random Walk or Unit Root Process. The equation looks like this: \(Y_t = Y_{t-1} + e_t\).

\[Y_t = Y_0 + \sum_{i=0}^{\infty} e_{t-i}\]

From Hansen: The past never disappears, and shocks are permanent.

To fix a unit root, then the first difference is white noise.

\[\Delta Y_t = Y_t - Y_{t-1} = Y_{t-1} + e_{t} - Y_{t-1}\]

Random Walk

Code 
tseries::adf.test()

Here, the NULL hypothesis is that there exists a unit root. Rejecting the NULL suggests the process is stationary.

AR(1)

The mean of an AR(1) (without an intercept) is 0. However, the conditional mean is: \(E[Y_t|\Omega_{t-1}] = E[\beta Y_{t-1} + e_t|\Omega_{t-1}] = \beta Y_{t-1}\).

Note that no matter the value of \(Y_{t-1}\), multiplying by \(\beta\) shifts it towards the long term average (0).

The conditional variance is: \(\text{var}(Y_t - E[Y_t|\Omega_{t-1}]|\Omega_{t-1}) = \text{var}(e_t|\Omega_{t-1})\). From here, \(\text{var}(e_t|\Omega_{t-1}) = \text{var}(e_t) = \sigma^2\)

The autocorrelation function of an AR(1) process is: \(\rho(k) = \beta^k\)

AR(1) + Intercept

What if our AR(1) model has an intercept?

\[Y_t = \alpha + \beta Y_{t-1} + e_t\]

To skip some math:

\[\begin{align} E[Y_t] &= \alpha + \beta \mu \\ &\text{where} \ \mu = \frac{\alpha}{1-\beta} \end{align}\]

\[E[Y_t|\Omega_{t-1}] = \alpha + \beta Y_{t-1}\]

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
s1 <- data.frame(y = rnorm(100), t = 1:100)

s2 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 101), t = 0:100)
for(i in 1:100) s2$y[s2$t == i] <- (.1*s2$y[s2$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

s3 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 101), t = 0:100)
for(i in 1:100) s3$y[s3$t == i] <- (.5*s3$y[s3$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

s4 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 101), t = 0:100)
for(i in 1:100) s4$y[s4$t == i] <- (.9*s4$y[s4$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

s5 <- data.frame(y = rep(15, 101), t = 0:100)
for(i in 1:100) s5$y[s5$t == i] <- (.9*s5$y[s5$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

s6 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 101), t = 0:100)
for(i in 1:100) s6$y[s6$t == i] <- 0.5 + (.9*s6$y[s6$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

s7 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 101), t = 0:100)
for(i in 1:100) s7$y[s7$t == i] <- (-.9*s7$y[s5$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s1$t, s1$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = ", epsilon)),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Code 
acf(s1$y)

Code 
pacf(s1$y)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s2$t, s2$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = 0.1*Y"[t-1], " + ", epsilon)),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Code 
acf(s2$y)

Code 
pacf(s2$y)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s3$t, s3$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = 0.5*Y"[t-1], " + ", epsilon)),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Code 
acf(s3$y)

Code 
pacf(s3$y)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s4$t, s4$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = 0.9*Y"[t-1], " + ", epsilon)),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Code 
acf(s4$y)

Code 
pacf(s4$y)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s7$t, s7$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = -0.9*Y"[t-1], " + ", epsilon)),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Code 
acf(s7$y)

Code 
pacf(s7$y)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s5$t, s5$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = 0.9*Y"[t-1], " + ", epsilon, "; Starting at 15.")),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

Code 
acf(s5$y)

Code 
pacf(s5$y)

Visualizing Autocorrelations

Code 
plot(s6$t, s6$y, type = "l",
     main = expression(paste("Y"[t], " = 0.5 + 0.9*Y"[t-1], " + ", epsilon)),
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Residual")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)
abline(h = .5 + .9*(.5/(1-.9)), lty = 3)

Code 
acf(s6$y)

Code 
pacf(s6$y)

Forecasting with AR(p)

For forecasting, use the n-step method.

\[E[Y_T|\Omega_{T-1}] = \beta Y_{T-1} \implies E[Y_{T+1}|\Omega_{T}] = \beta Y_{T}\]

\[E[Y_{T+2}|\Omega_{T}] = \beta Y_{T+1} = \beta(\beta Y_{T})\]

\[E[Y_T|\Omega_{T-1}] = \alpha + \beta Y_{T-1} \implies E[Y_{T+1}|\Omega_{T}] = \alpha + \beta Y_{T}\]

\[\begin{align} E[Y_{T+2}|\Omega_{T}] &= \alpha + \beta Y_{T+1} \\ &= \alpha + \beta(\alpha + \beta Y_{T}) \\ &= (1+\beta)\alpha + \beta^2Y_{T} \end{align}\]

Forecasting with AR(p)

Code 
s5 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 121), t = 0:120)
for(i in 1:120) s5$y[s5$t == i] <- (.9*s5$y[s5$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)
s5$horizon <- ifelse(s5$t >= 101, 1, 0)

lim <- s5$horizon == 0
plot(s5$t[lim], s5$y[lim],
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome",
     xlim = c(0, 120), type = "l")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)

reg1 <- arima(s5$y[lim], c(1, 0, 0), include.mean = FALSE)
reg2 <- arima(s5$y[lim], c(1, 0, 0), include.mean = TRUE)

p1 <- predict(reg1, n.ahead = 20)
p2 <- predict(reg2, n.ahead = 20)
lines(s5$t[!lim], s5$y[!lim], col = "tomato", lwd = 2)
lines(p1$pred, col = "dodgerblue")
lines(p2$pred, col = "mediumseagreen")
legend("bottomleft", bty = "n", lty = 1,
       legend = c("No Intercept", "Intercept"),
       col = c("dodgerblue", "mediumseagreen"))

Forecasting with AR(p)

Code 
s6 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 121), t = 0:120)
for(i in 1:120) s6$y[s6$t == i] <- .5 + (.9*s6$y[s6$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)
s6$horizon <- ifelse(s6$t >= 101, 1, 0)

lim <- s6$horizon == 0
plot(s6$t[lim], s6$y[lim],
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome",
     xlim = c(0, 120), type = "l")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)
abline(h = .5 + .9*(.5/(1-.9)), lty = 3)

reg1 <- arima(s6$y[lim], c(1, 0, 0), include.mean = FALSE)
reg2 <- arima(s6$y[lim], c(1, 0, 0), include.mean = TRUE)

p1 <- predict(reg1, n.ahead = 20)
p2 <- predict(reg2, n.ahead = 20)
lines(s6$t[!lim], s6$y[!lim], col = "tomato", lwd = 2)
lines(p1$pred, col = "dodgerblue")
lines(p2$pred, col = "mediumseagreen")

legend("topleft", bty = "n", lty = 1, horiz = T,
       legend = c("No Intercept", "Intercept"),
       col = c("dodgerblue", "mediumseagreen"))

Forecasting with AR(p)

Code 
plot(s6$t[lim], s6$y[lim],     
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome",
     xlim = c(0, 120), type = "l",
     ylim = c(min(p1$pred - 1.645*p1$se,
                  p2$pred - 1.645*p2$se,
                  s6$y),
              max(p1$pred + 1.645*p1$se,
                  p2$pred + 1.645*p2$se,
                  s6$y)))
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)
abline(h = .5 + .9*(.5/(1-.9)), lty = 3)

lines(s6$t[!lim], s6$y[!lim], col = "tomato", lwd = 2)
lines(p1$pred, col = "dodgerblue")
lines(p1$pred + 1.645*p1$se, col = "dodgerblue", lty = 2)
lines(p1$pred - 1.645*p1$se, col = "dodgerblue", lty = 2)

lines(p2$pred, col = "mediumseagreen")
lines(p2$pred + 1.645*p2$se, col = "mediumseagreen", lty = 2)
lines(p2$pred - 1.645*p2$se, col = "mediumseagreen", lty = 2)

legend("topleft", bty = "n", lty = 1,
       legend = c("No Intercept", "Intercept"),
       col = c("dodgerblue", "mediumseagreen"))

Forecasting with AR(p)

Code 
plot(s6$t[lim], s6$y[lim],
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome",
     xlim = c(0, 120), type = "l",
     ylim = c(min(p1$pred - 1.645*p1$se,
                  p2$pred - 1.645*p2$se,
                  s6$y),
              max(p1$pred + 1.645*p1$se,
                  p2$pred + 1.645*p2$se,
                  s6$y)))
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)
abline(h = .5 + .9*(.5/(1-.9)), lty = 3)

polygon(x = c(101:120, 120:101),
        y = c(p1$pred - 1.645*p1$se,
              rev(p1$pred + 1.645*p1$se)),
        border = NA,
        col = scales::alpha("dodgerblue", .2))
polygon(x = c(101:120, 120:101),
        y = c(p2$pred - 1.645*p2$se,
              rev(p2$pred + 1.645*p2$se)),
        border = NA,
        col = scales::alpha("mediumseagreen", .2))

lines(s6$t[!lim], s6$y[!lim], col = "tomato", lwd = 2)
lines(p1$pred, col = "dodgerblue", lwd = 2)
lines(p2$pred, col = "mediumseagreen", lwd = 2)

legend("topleft", bty = "n", lty = 1,
       legend = c("No Intercept", "Intercept"),
       col = c("dodgerblue", "mediumseagreen"))

Moving Average

Moving Average

\[Y_t = \epsilon_t + \theta \epsilon_{t-1}\] where \(\theta\) describes serial correlation, and \(\epsilon_t\) is white noise.

Mean:

\[E[\epsilon_t + \theta \epsilon_{t-1}] = E[\epsilon_t] + \theta E[ \epsilon_{t-1}] = 0\]

Variance:

\[\text{var}(\epsilon_t + \theta \epsilon_{t-1}) = \sigma^2 + \theta^2 \sigma^2 = (1 + \theta^2)\sigma^2\]

Conditional Moving Average

Conditional Mean:

\[E[Y_t | \Omega_{t-1}] = E[\epsilon_t + \theta \epsilon_{t-1}] = \theta \epsilon_{t-1}\] - Therefore, the forecast error (\(Y_t - E[Y_t | \Omega_{t-1}]\)) is: \(\epsilon_t\).

  • In addition, the forecast variance is equal to the conditional variance of \(\sigma^2\).

MA Autocovariance

\[\gamma(1) = E[(\epsilon_{t} + \theta \epsilon_{t-1})(\epsilon_{t-1} + \theta \epsilon_{t-2})] \]

Because white noise has no serial correlation…

\[\gamma(1) = \theta \sigma^2\]

Similarly, \(\gamma(k) = 0 \ \forall \ k > 1\).

MA Autocorrelation

\[\rho(1) = \frac{\gamma(1)}{\gamma(0)} = \frac{\theta \sigma^2}{(1 + \theta^2) \sigma^2} = \frac{\theta}{1+\theta^2}\]

\[\rho(k) = 0 \ \forall \ k > 1\]

\[\rho(1) \in (\frac{-1}{2}, \frac{1}{2})\]

MA \(\theta\) Criteria

\[Y_t = e_t + \theta e_{t-1} \implies e_t = Y_t + \theta e_{t-1}\]

\[\begin{align} e_t = Y_t - \theta e_{t-1} \implies &e_{t-1} = Y_{t-1} - \theta e_{t-2} \\ &e_{t} = Y_t - \theta Y_{t-1} + \theta^2 e_{t-2} \\ &e_{t} = Y_t - \theta Y_{t-1} + \theta^2 Y_{t-2} - \theta^3e_{t-3} \end{align}\]

\[\begin{align} Y_t &= \theta Y_{t-1} - \theta^2Y_{t-2} + \theta^3Y_{t-3} + \ ... \ + \ e_{t} \\ &= -\sum_{i = 1}^{\infty} (-\theta)^iY_{t-i} + e_{t} \end{align}\]

Similarly, this only converges if \(|\theta|\) < 1.

Optimal Forecast

See Hansen’s Lecture #9 for the formal recursive forecast.

We will use R’s arima() function as shown above.

Comparing AR and MA

AR(1) \(\implies \rho(k) = \beta^k \ \forall \ k\)

MA(1) \(\implies \rho(k) = 0 \ \forall \ k>1\)

ACF for AR(1)

Code 
df <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 10001), t = 0:10000)
for(i in 1:10000) df$y[df$t == i] <- (.9*df$y[df$t == i-1]) + rnorm(1)
acf(df$y)
abline(h = .9, lty = 2)

PACF for AR(1)

Code 
pacf(df$y)

ACF for AR(2)

Code 
df <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 10001), t = 0:10000)
for(i in 2:10000) df$y[df$t == i] <- (.5*df$y[df$t == i-1]) + (.3*df$y[df$t == i-2]) + rnorm(1)
acf(df$y)

PACF for AR(2)

Code 
pacf(df$y)

ACF for AR(2)

Code 
df <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 10001), t = 0:10000)
for(i in 2:10000) df$y[df$t == i] <- (.5*df$y[df$t == i-1]) + (-.3*df$y[df$t == i-2]) + rnorm(1)
acf(df$y)

PACF for AR(2)

Code 
pacf(df$y)

ACF for MA(1)

Code 
df <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 10001), t = 0:10000, shocks = c(0, rnorm(10000)))
for(i in 1:10000) df$y[df$t == i] <- df$shocks[df$t == i] + .7*df$shocks[df$t == (i-1)]
acf(df$y)
abline(h = .7/(1+(.7^2)), lty = 2)

PACF for MA(1)

Code 
pacf(df$y)

ACF for MA(2)

Code 
df <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 10001), t = 0:10000, shocks = c(0, rnorm(10000)))
for(i in 2:10000) df$y[df$t == i] <- df$shocks[df$t == i] + .5*df$shocks[df$t == (i-1)] + .3*df$shocks[df$t == (i-2)]
acf(df$y)

PACF for MA(2)

Code 
pacf(df$y)

ACF for MA(2)

Code 
df <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 10001), t = 0:10000, shocks = c(0, rnorm(10000)))
for(i in 2:10000) df$y[df$t == i] <- df$shocks[df$t == i] + .5*df$shocks[df$t == (i-1)] - .3*df$shocks[df$t == (i-2)]
acf(df$y)

PACF for MA(2)

Code 
pacf(df$y)

Forecasting with MA(1)

Code 
s6 <- data.frame(y = rep(0, 121), t = 0:120, shocks = c(0, rnorm(120)))
for(i in 1:120) s6$y[s6$t == i] <- s6$shocks[s6$t == i] + .7*s6$shocks[s6$t == (i-1)]
s6$horizon <- ifelse(s6$t >= 101, 1, 0)

lim <- s6$horizon == 0
plot(s6$t[lim], s6$y[lim],
     xlab = "Time", ylab = "Outcome",
     xlim = c(0, 120), type = "l")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2)
abline(h = .5 + .9*(.5/(1-.9)), lty = 3)

reg1 <- arima(s6$y[lim], c(0, 0, 1), include.mean = FALSE)
reg2 <- arima(s6$y[lim], c(1, 0, 0), include.mean = FALSE)

p1 <- predict(reg1, n.ahead = 20)
p2 <- predict(reg2, n.ahead = 20)
lines(s6$t[!lim], s6$y[!lim], col = "tomato", lwd = 2)

lines(p1$pred, col = "dodgerblue")
lines(p1$pred + 1.645*p1$se, col = "dodgerblue", lty = 2)
lines(p1$pred - 1.645*p1$se, col = "dodgerblue", lty = 2)

lines(p2$pred, col = "mediumseagreen")
lines(p2$pred + 1.645*p2$se, col = "mediumseagreen", lty = 2)
lines(p2$pred - 1.645*p2$se, col = "mediumseagreen", lty = 2)

legend("bottomleft", bty = "n", lty = 1, horiz = T,
       legend = c("MA(1)", "AR(1)"),
       col = c("dodgerblue", "mediumseagreen"))

Comparing AR and MA

Process ACF PACF
AR(p) Decaying/Oscillating 0 for k > q
MA(q) 0 for k > p Decaying/Oscillating
ARMA(p,q) Decaying/Oscillating
after lag max(0, q-p)		 Decaying/Oscillating
after lag max(0, p-q)

Exam Review

Exam Topics

  • Data Cleaning

  • Data Visualization

  • Estimate, Interpret, Forecast, and Evaluate:

    • Intercept
    • Trend
    • Kink
    • AR
    • MA

ECON 707/807: Econometrics II